


Blood in The Water

by Said_no_one_at_all



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Testing the Waters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 11:33:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21899140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Said_no_one_at_all/pseuds/Said_no_one_at_all
Summary: I’m not dead y’all
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Arya Stark
Comments: 16
Kudos: 167





	1. Chapter 1

There was blood in the water over by the pool table. Something had the local scum riled up. They shifted and fluttered about instead of holding their normal stagnant positions. He came here every night and every night was just about the same. So what was disturbing his status quo?  
Sandor frequented this particular dive for a few reasons. One his brother never set foot in it. Two, the ale was cheap. And three, that was a combination. Dimly lit corners he could huddle his large frame into, the same dim light hiding the things he didn’t need pointed out to him, particularly his face. The bar maids who worked this joint were passed their prime and had seen plenty of shit in their time. They paid him little mind as they made their rounds swapping his dead soldiers for fresh bottles without so much as a nod, blink or peep out of them. Suited him just fine, he wasn’t a social butterfly and if he got friendly they might start expecting better tips.  
He kept his eye on the collection of local shit bags still quite unsettled across the room. He was curious but not curious enough to walk across that room. The pool tables and jukebox demanded more lighting than he was comfortable with so he continued the drain on the newest bottle left at his table still eyeing the activity on the other side of the tavern.  
His face was fucked but his eyesight and hearing were excellent and he kept picking up the colorful exclamations coming for the locals. Someone was racking up quite the little collection of victims at the pool table. One by one they were losing their asses and their rent money. Quite funny this. Pool sharks? Was that even a thing anymore and after the first few victims, why were they still challenging?  
It was late enough, time to drag his ass back to his room and pass out for the night only to wake up and do it all over again. He sorted out his pockets making sure nothing got knicked, wallet, phone and keys all where they should be. He fished a wad of small bills from his pant pocket and as he did he felt eyes on him. He’d been stared at enough in his life to know the feeling. Lifting his eyes off his cash, intent on giving the death glare to whoever had the balls to so blatantly stare at him.  
Looking back at him were a pair of eyes he thought he’d never see again. Sharper and more focused than maybe they had been in the past but that particular shade of ice blue was unmistakable. He found the shark and she was every bit a predator. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He dropped a few bills on the table, enough to cover his tab and keep ole Mary from spitting in his beer and ploughed his way over to the door. That one was trouble and he best get his shit and go, forget he ever saw her.  
He got to his bike, turned on the gas put the key in the ignition and looked up just in time to meet those eyes again.  
“Where you running off to Dog?”


	2. Chapter 2

Arya Stark, first class pain in the ass, cold little bitch and now apparently a pool shark was standing just feet away, arms folded across her chest expectantly. What could she possibly want. When someone leaves you for dead that’s usually the end of your association. Yet she still stares like he owes her something. Only the thing he owes that brat is a proper ass kicking.

“Fuck off. Nothing to say to the likes of you.” He grumbled as he fidgeted with the cuffs of his jacket, still trying to avoid looking directly at her.

“Funny, you look like you have something to say, anything on your mind?” Her voice calm and even, unnervingly so.

“What would I have to say to an ungrateful bitch like you? I could wring that tiny little neck of yours and pitch you in the bay.” He was snarling now, two minutes since she appeared and urge to throttle her was just as strong as it was the day they parted. 

She stepped closer, now only a foot or two away, plenty close enough Sandor could snap her in half if he wanted. She was different than she was before. She wasn’t a timid little flower like her sister but she had been a ball of agitation and anger. Now she was almost serene. Frighteningly calm. Dangerously still. He needed to get the fuck away from she snatched his soul or something . 

Quick as a flash she extended a hand with a neatly folded stack of bills. “Here, I owe you that back.”

“Keep the fucking money girl, don’t need nothing from you.” He starts his bike and readies to take off hoping she’ll take the hint and go back inside but when does she ever do what he wants.

Instead she does something completely unexpected and hops on the back of the bike as she’d done a thousand times before when they were on the move, stealing and sleeping in ditches. She settles herself behind him. And he throws her the most hateful look he can muster. She’s not fussed.  
“Get off my bike. NOW.” He was seething.   
“ No.”  
“I’ll throw you off if your don’t move your scrawny ass. I have shit to do. I don’t have the time to be playing nursemaid to you again. Go bother someone else.”  
“I call bullshit. Your at this shithole tavern on a Tuesday. You don’t have anything better to do. And you won’t throw me off either. Now if you’re done being a stubborn shit I heard there’s a taco place that’s open all night, they even have chicken. I’ll buy.”


	3. Chapter 3

This must be hell.   
That was the only explanation for why he was sitting in this dingy yet overly colorful taqueria watching the wolf bitch throw back tacos in anything but a ladylike manner. Why did he come here? Why didn’t he chuck her off a bridge? How did she eat that sixth taco? 

“ I paid extra for the guac atleast eat your share.” She grumbled while unwrapping taco #7. 

“What the fuck you want girl, it sure ain’t my dinner company.”

“ It’s like 3 a.m. so I think this counts as an early breakfast.” She answered brightly as she wiped her hands on a cheap paper napkin. 

“Breakfast, lunch, fucking midnight snack. I don’t fucking care.”

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day Sandor. Didn’t your septa teach you that.”

“Never had one, I didn’t grow up a spoilt brat, like you.”

“No, you just grew up to be the worst shit in the seven kingdoms.”

“Aye, I am.” Sandor stood up from their tiny table, he’d had enough of whatever game she was trying to play with him. He didn’t owe her shit. He just wanted to go back to his little hole and pretend he hallucinated the whole thing. She was never here. She had no reason to be, she’s the one that left him to die. He pulled a cigarette out and stuck it in his mouth as he got back on his bike. No sooner had he gone to light it up that she appeared on the sidewalk next to him. 

“What do you want from me girl?” He said before he lit up blowing wisps of smoke into the cool dark air. “You got no reason following me around. You wanted to bash my head in with a rock if I remember right.”

She took a couple steps closer leaning on a crooked pole and huffed. “ I didn’t follow you. That was just dumb luck. I just got here and went to the first shithole bar I could find. Pools an easy way to make quick cash and the city is big enough that I can burn the place and still have plenty other places poach.”

“Until you piss off the wrong asshole who decides carve up that pretty little face of yours.”

“HA, we both know that’s a load of shit.”

“Still doesn’t explain why your here.”

“I don’t know.”

“Right.” He fired up his bike, cigarette still hanging from his mouth. “You just gonna stand there girl, I have shit to do in the morning, get on or I leave your treacherous ass here.”


	4. Chapter 4

This couch smelled like a musty old shoe. Pleather was never a justifiable design choice even back in the 70’s when this awful green monstrosity must have been made. No other decade could explain it. Every inch of her bare skin that touched it was stuck to it like duct tape. Maybe actual duct tape. It had enough of the silver strips patching it, maybe some had ended up on her. Also there was a spring in her back. This thing would make an excellent torture device, the Spanish Inquisition would have been proud. 

She stared at the yellowing popcorn ceiling of Sandor Clegane’s sorry excuse for an apartment. He’d left hours earlier just as the morning was breaking. He said nothing and she pretended to sleep. There had been no conversation after they arrived last night. He simply threw her a ratty but clean blanket and closed his bedroom door behind him. Seven hells this was awkward. What do you say to someone who you betrayed? 

She thought she knew right and wrong, what was just and what was not. Her time in Bravos has taught her many things, mainly that she didn’t know as much as she thought she did. She left out a final huff before she peeled her skin off the life like real vinyl.

There wasn’t much to the place. Shitty couch, no TV, radio though, that was something at least. A small table sat near the window, two chairs mismatched. A kitchenette took up the far wall. It was all pretty nondescript, the kind of random collection of things found out of the curb. Nothing was cared for, just served a purpose. 

She wandered into the kitchen area and noticed a note he must have scribbled on his way out this morning.  
“Cereal on top of the fridge, no milk. Be gone by the time I get back.” The handwriting was clear, but blocky, just what she would have expected from him having never seen anything written in his own hand. She wadded it’s up and tossed it across the room.

She came to town with a purpose but a little diversion wouldn’t hurt. First things first. She grabbed the pencil he’d left on the counter and started a grocery list, item 1: Milk.


	5. Chapter 5

“You still don’t listen for shit do you?” Clegane barreled through the door disturbing her lemon scented revelry. She’d just sat down with a bowl of sugary cereal complete with nice cold and very fresh two percent milk. Leaning back in one mismatched chair, bare feet propped on the rickety little table.

She left the apartment earlier and found a small little market. The selection wasn’t fantastic but it was oddly satisfying to mark off each item on her list. She had a spring in her step as she returned to unlocked apartment because of course he didn’t leave spare keys lying around. She dusted, she straightened, she even cleaned all of the two windows in the place. She would have vacuumed but all she could find was a cheap broom. She made a dustpan out of a paper plate. All and all it was a productive morning. 

She couldn’t really place the last time she cleaned of her own volition. She remembered being forced to as a form of punishment, still preferable to needle point. She feigned cleaning many times while she was working for the house of the black and white. She couldn’t really put a finger on why she was deriving such pleasure from the citrusy cleanser she’d used on the countertop. Not until he burst in the door. Annoyed, confused, and snarly. Yes, that was why she did it. 

Arya sighed dramatically, setting her bowl down. “Well, you said I could have cereal.”

“This morning. Which doesn’t explain why you’re here now. And what the fuck happened in here?”

“Well the dishes were dirty, and there was no milk.”

“Eat it out of the box you prissy bitch.”

“What sort of monster are you.”

“Listen here, Wolf bitch, I was stupid enough to bring you back here, I forgot you’re a backstabbing little heathen and leaving you on the street at night would be more than fair considering the state you saw fit to leave me in. I told you you weren’t staying and to be gone by the time I got home. Yet I find you had your deceitful little hands all over this place. Find anything interesting?”

“Not particularly, you’re pretty boring these days it seems.” She commented as she picked her bowl back up and shoveled a heap of frosted goodness into her mouth not bothering to break eye contact in the process. 

His left eye twitched just a hair


	6. Chapter 6

He knew it. He knew the minute he saw her she was going to fuck up his life. She was every bad omen imaginable. Yet she just sat there bobbing her bare feet on his kitchen table while gorging on frosted cereal as if this was the most natural situation in the world. He should have ran from bar, never set foot in the taqueria, much less let a wolf in his door. 

She wasn’t the harmless little whelp he’d picked up from those zealots she was hiding with. She was a full grown she wolf. She hadn't tried to threaten him once, she was calm and more or less pleasant. He was convinced she was up to something. Perhaps she’d already poisoned him in his sleep and she was just biding her time until his heart imploded or his eyes popped out his head. Either way he needed to get her out of his hair. He didn’t owe her shit he reminded himself. 

He scrubbed his hands over his face as he crash landed in the other chair.  
“I’m going to ask you and I don’t want on of your half assed answers. What are you doing here?”

“Eating cereal?”

“Fuck the cereal. Why are you here? In this town? Out of all the bloody places you could turn up, you show up here? Why? You finally going to finish me off?”

Arya slurped the milk from the bottom of the bowl before taking and rinsing it leisurely in the sink. She stood there for a minute trying to decide how to best answer a question she wasn’t even sure she knew why she was doing what she was doing. She let out the breath she was holding and turned back to Sandor.

“I have a list to finish, I was heading that way. I decided to make a stop for some easy money when I saw you in the tavern. That’s all.”

“You still haven’t let go of that? You still going to put a blade through my head?” 

“No, but the Lannister’s.”

“ Your smarter than that girl.”

“I mean to finish it. I need to finish it.”

“Even if it kills you .”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He glared at her from across the table. She felt the blood rush to her skin. The heat of embarrassment she hadn’t felt since she was a child being teased for her boyish ways or unpretty face. She didn’t understand it, but she did understand the look on his face. It was anger. She wasn’t sure why but she was startled out of her thoughts when he rose from the table abruptly and stomped back towards the door. 

“Where you going?”

He gave no reply as he slammed the door behind him.

Arya took herself to bed back on the couch a few hours later.


	7. Chapter 7

Sandor aimlessly wandered the back alleys and side streets. He had no particular destination. He thought perhaps going back to the bar and getting shitfaced drunk but somehow she’d tainted the place with her presence. Or maybe he didn’t want to taint her by association. That girl was a typhoon of trouble, since the day he caught eyes with her she’d been fucking up his situation. He could tell himself a million times, he owed her nothing but still he felt as if he’d failed her in some way.

When she said she was still going after Cersei and her water head of a brother it was like a knife to his gut. He’d hoped if she’d survived on her own she’d get out of the country, find someplace new. Live a life. A full life, with some sort of passion or joy. Anything but giving herself up to vengeance and death. That was his road and he’d never questioned it until her. He was content to live and die by sword so to speak. Never wanted much of anything. Just survived from one day to the next. The future didn’t mean anything but one more day to suffer or inflict damage.

He’d never done anything good with himself before her. And if he’s honest it was never his intent. The Lannister’s were a fucked up bunch but Baratheon wasn’t so bad. Dumb but not evil. With the old fucker dead and his bitch wife pulling the puppet strings with her sociopathic inbred children it seemed like an opportune time to jump ship. Security isn’t a hard gig and it’s all he’d ever done and as much as he hated his brother he couldn’t stomach another moment more. So he told them to get fucked and took off.

He knew they’d had a hand in offing the girl's father. With Baratheon in the ground no one was safe despite the many years of joint ventures between the families. He thought that’d be enough he didn’t expect the wholesale slaughter of her mother and brothers. That was low even for them.

It was dumb luck even running into her. She’d been with her father in the city, while he was working on something with the old fool. Fucker dies in a suspicious accident then next thing you know old Ned hangs himself, except he didn’t and everyone knows that, especially the girl, who watched his brother throw her father over the parapet with a noose around his neck.

She ran, smart girl that she is. Ended up with a group of whinging religious zealots. They were only out to make a buck off her, fund their cause. Hell if he didn’t plan to do the same when he poached her. Solid plan, have her very rich family pay him for his “kindness and protection” of her whilst he escorted her out of dangerous territory. Only it didn’t work that way.

Her family was becoming an endangered species. Once her father was gone all the vipers came out. Soon the poor girl had nothing left, her mother and eldest brother murdered at a wedding. A wedding they missed by an hour probably less. She’d been so antsy to get to the venue. It was nothing but a blood soaked shit show. They even mutilated her brother’s body, sick fucks. 

Watching the terror and pain, being beside her while her world imploded changed things. Now there was a bond, made in blood and sorrow and he was bound to her forever. She wasn’t a meal ticket after that. He couldn’t give it a name, the closest thing was purpose. A reason to do, not an order but something he would care for and protect because he willed it so. He did it because he wanted to, because something about her called him to do and be more than just what he’s been before. 

After all that, he sacrificed himself for her. Some freelance security, claiming to be working for her family, tried to snatch her telling her it was alright and that she’d protect her. Fucking laugh that was. He didn’t trust the big bitch as far as he could throw her. So they got into it. It was bloody and the bitch was good. Shouldn’t have been good enough to beat him though but he’d been suffering from a raging infection after they got jumped in an alley the week before. He was weak, starved and sick. And he failed. He laid there in his own blood, it was alright he’d done the right thing by her. If he was gonna die this was a good enough way. 

He thought that, until she appeared again, after the big bitch couldn’t find her. She asked if he was going to die, and when he said yes she relieved him off all his money but refused to help him end his pain. She didn’t even flinch, she just walked away. 

Yes he had failed her before but this time he had to make sure he didn’t. Even if it meant locking her in a box until she came to her senses. He wouldn’t tolerate her wasting herself on a fool's errand when she was so so much more than that.


	8. Chapter 8

Arya slept fitfully, and despite the pleasant yet cool weather she woke up in a light coating of sweat. She sat up on the rickety sofa planting her feet on the floor when she noticed an unfamiliar weight on her ankle. Looking down, she squinted and rubbed her eyes, looking again. She knew what she was looking at, but it still didn’t compute until it did,  
“Sandor!”she yelled, “Sandor Clegane, explain yourself before I gut you.”   
“Quiet girl, it’s early still, too early for you to scream like a banshee.”  
“Hm, well, I’ll remember that next time some asshole slaps an ankle monitor on me while I sleep.”  
She was facing him now, she’d turned to the direction of his gruff voice to find him sitting in one mismatched chair a cigarette in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. She looked absolutely petulant, full of indignant rage. If he was honest, he kind of liked pissing her off, gave him a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach. She stomped up to him.   
“Take it off, take it off right now.” She said with deathly seriousness.  
“No don’t think I will.”  
“This won’t stop me, I’m still going.”  
“You're more than welcome to try wolf bitch.” He said sipping his black coffee. “Thing is, that isn’t just going to tell me where you are it’s going to send a nice little shock anytime you try leave the area, you keep trying to leave the voltage goes up until you go back where you belong. You can’t take it off and wouldn’t suggest trying to tamper with it, you won’t like the result.” He got up and throwing back the rest of his coffee before unceremoniously dumping the mug in the sink, brushing past her as he went into his room.  
Arya stalked after him, barely registering that she hadn’t even snooped in his room yet. Also it was everyone she expected, dark, messy, and impersonal. He chucked the shirt he’d been wearing off and grabbed another off the floor, giving it a sniff before throwing it on. She stared at him incredulously. He had more scars than she remembered, including what was left of the mark on his neck from the biter. She forgot how huge he really was. Somehow she always reasoned he’d only seemed so huge because she was a child but no, he was a giant of a man, built like an oak and just as solid. She remembered she has a bone to pick with him.  
“Take this bloody thing off me!”   
“No,” he said simply brushing past her again back to the main living area. He sat down on the couch and started putting his heavy boots on. She moved to stand in front of him but he paid her no mind.  
“Why, why are you doing this. You wanted me gone remember? How am I supposed to get out of your hair now?”  
“You had your chance, you decided to stick around. Now little wolf bitch your feet are nailed to the ground until I decide otherwise.”  
And with that he strode out the door leaving a dumbfound Arya in his wake.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not dead y’all

She sat at the small table staring out at the rising sun. She didn’t move for a very long time. She had miscalculated the situation. Normally an error of this sort meant she was in imminent danger. A cold wave of anxiety washed over here. She knew it was unfounded, at least in the sense that her life wasn’t in immediate danger. Sandor was many things but she never really feared he wouldn’t harm her.  
Her anxiety surged up again. She prided herself on her ability to read people and anticipate their actions. She had been so so wrong and what did that say about her. She re-evaluated her situation. She didn’t know the range of the cuff or how intense it could be since this sort of tech wasn’t her forte. She had no phone. She destroyed her last burner before she left Bravvos meaning to pick up a fresh one after she got some more funds together. She absolutely didn’t want anyone tracking her from there to here. Consequently, she had no way to google what this thing was and how to break it.*insert sad faced yet ironic emoji* and clearly Sandor wasn’t the type to leave a computer lying around, she’d almost bet he was tech illiterate if it wasn’t for her shiny new anklet.  
This whole thing wasn’t really panning out her way and she’d had such a lovely start at the pool tables. She slouched back in the creaky kitchen chair and stared at the offensive object attached to her, foot propped up on the table.  
Sandor came home with the setting sun. He deviated from his normal routine skipping the dive bar and his appointment with a beer bottle to stop and pick up a pizza on his way home.  
“Girl better not have become one of those whinging vegans,” he muttered to himself as he walked down the hall to the shitty brown door with 3b half hanging off. To his surprise he found her sitting on the couch feet tucked under her with the sleek eyebrow raised to his less than graceful entrance.  
“Meat lovers?”  
“Don’t like it, don’t eat it,” he barked as he tossed it on the kitchen table.  
“Don’t get snippy,” she said as she hopped up from the couch over to the kitchenette grabbing paper plates and a bottle of hot sauce she picked up at the corner store, finally flopping down in the creaky chair and unceremoniously flipping open the pizza box, grabbing two slices and proceeding to douse them in liquid fire.  
Sandor went to the fridge, hoping he had one last ale stuck in the back to find a fresh six pack front and center. She must have got it when she went shopping, he’d been too flustered by her to take notice the day before. Without a word of acknowledgement he grabbed a bottle, popped the cap and took a long pull as he watched her making an impressive dent in her plate. He still said nothing as he grabbed the other plate she brought, picked up a couple slices and started eating, periodically stopping to wash it down with ale.  
It was companionable silence but neither one of them needed or wanted their ears talked off. She continued to bath her pizza in hot sauce while Sandor watched, alternating a slice of pizza and a pull on the ale bottle. She didn’t say anything and neither did he.  
Eventually the pizza was gone, the girl always had the appetite of a bear, and she hadn’t suddenly become a dainty eater. He continued to let his eyes follow her as she took the garbage from the table, tidied up, wiping the table down of crumbs, sausage grease and errant hot sauce. She moved about in his space comfortably, her bare feet slapping on the aging linoleum. He wasn’t sure how long he watched her until her ice blue eyes caught his. He abruptly stood from the table and strode over to his bedroom door shutting it behind him without a word or nod in her direction.


	10. Chapter 10

She sat staring at the faded bedroom door for what seemed like hours, she heard nothing after the first five minutes. She couldn’t explain what she was expecting to hear and why she was watching so intently. His company was only barely tolerable, so why was she trying to will him to come back out. It was all together a disturbing train of thought. She finally turned out the lights and laid back down on the dilapidated couch. She needed to focus, the first item on the to-do list was removing her unwanted ankle jewelry.  
She gave the offending object a glance, this wasn’t cheap tech. If it had been, she would have been out of it by now. He was a bodyguard and generally those that required that type of service didn’t willingly tag themselves like cattle to make the job easier. She also didn’t see him spending his own cash on something like this. It didn’t make sense if she annoyed him so that he almost literally nailed her feet to the ground. Enough time and perseverance and she could free herself but the thought of getting shocked continuously in the process was not at all attractive. She was going to have to get some answers from him, the prospect sitting sourly in her stomach. He wouldn’t make it easy on her so she best ambush him to keep him off balance. She shut her eyes and practiced a few meditative breaths before drifting off to a dreamless sleep.  
The creaking of the floorboards woke her, it was still twilight out but she was instantly hyper aware of the sound of him moving about his room. He must be getting ready to leave. She darted off the couch and grabbed her jeans and pulled them on quickly in the dim pre dawn light. He was never one to dawdle about, he’d be up and out quickly. She grabbed her shoes and jacket and sat back down as to appear as if she hadn’t just made a Guinness book record attempt at fastest dressing time in order to annoy former foe.  
She had just finished arranging herself on the couch to appear oddly casual when he quickly backed out of his room killing the light as if he was trying not to wake her. When he turned around there was the slightest perceivable jolt at seeing her seated and awake looking as if she was ready for the day.  
“Go back to sleep wolf, it’s early and you’re a right bitch you don’t get your beauty sleep.” He went to grab his leather jacket but she intercepted him just as he went to pull it from it’s haphazard hook.  
“ I’m bored shitless locked up all day.” She folded her arms behind and looked up at him through her long dark lashes, feigning docility. He gave a dark chuckle as he pocketed his keys and his phone.  
“Don’t give a fuck now move, I have somewhere to be.”  
“I’m going with you.”  
“No you aren’t, you're staying put until I decide otherwise.”  
She backed herself against the front door blocking his path. Sure, he could physically move her but she had a set of lungs on her and glint in her eye told him she was on the edge of fucking up his whole day just for sport.  
“I’m not staying locked up here like I’m some little bird, I’m not Sansa. Let me go or take me with you or else I might accidentally start screaming and crying and wake everyone in a three floor vicinity. Might draw some questions as to what such a small girl like me is doing being held captive in your apartment.”  
“ I’m working girl, you can’t come. End of story.”  
“Who you working for, so help me it better not be a Lannister,” she said as she flattened herself up to the door.  
“What? Fuck no, I’m no ones guard dog anymore.” He went o reach for her shoulder to dislodge her from his path but she grabbed his thick wrist before countering with another question.  
“What in the fuck are you doing then?”  
“Work.”  
“Oh yes let’s keep playing this game, I can go all day. Where are you going all day, you’ve always done guard work, you secretly working as high school janitor now?” Her tone was mocking and the slight smirk on her face was enough for him to contemplate the merits of duct taping her mouth shut and throwing her in a closet.  
“ Fuck all, I’ve got shit to do. Move your scrawny ass.”  
“You’re taking me with you, now take this stupid thing off me so we can leave already.”  
“Fuck fine, that’s staying on though,” he said pointing at her ankle. “Now move, I’ve places to be,” motioning for her to move away from the door.  
“What do you mean, this thing is a joke? I could have left already?” She bawled her first and very nearly stamped her foot like a petulant child.  
“I don’t have time for your shit right now”. He scrubbed his face with his hand. “ Fine, fuck it. No, it’s not a joke. You have a two block radius from the apartment. The thing also has an option for a moving containment area as long as you’re within a certain distance of an authorized device, now move or I’ll be late to work you fucking menace.”  
He grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her and spinning her out the door as she was starting to form yet another question he didn’t want to answer. He slammed the door behind them, turning to lock it as she yet again failed at holding her venomous little tongue.  
“Keep it down or you’ll wake the neighbors, you stomp around like disgruntled ox.”  
“One more word.” He said lowly as he held a finger to her face.  
She smirked then turned to head down the hall.  
“Seven hells, you're such a pain in the ass,” he said as he reached over her to grab the door to open it like the well trained dog he was. They walked out into the cool morning air towards his parked bike. He started it up, kicking it over on the first try.  
“Think you could stop by Starbucks on the way?” He twisted to glare over his shoulder as she settled behind him.  
“Is that a no?”  
“Should have locked you a box.”  
“Your mistake, not mine, so stop and let me get a coffee.”  
He shook his head and punched the bridge of nose. He put on his shades and kicked back his kickstand as the first rays of sun peeked over the horizon, the sound of the bike echoing off the buildings as they headed down the road into the crisp morning air.


End file.
